


Afloat

by Nununununu



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Feelings, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 06:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Pushing his glasses off, Alex rubs his eyes with fingers and thumb, and regrets the fact he’s already eaten his way through all of the ice cream they keep in the freezer. The cursor blinks on the glowing screen in front of him like an accusation, the few paragraphs he’s managed to scrape together painfully inadequate, the feeble sentences blurring together like they’re mocking him.





	Afloat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cerulean_irene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerulean_irene/gifts).

Alex doesn’t want to admit it, but –

He’s struggling. He’s struggling a lot. He’s always had to paddle hard under water to keep looking cool up above, never wanting anyone to know just how much it takes. But law school –

It’s redundant to say it, but law school is _hard_. Alex knew it would be – and relishes the challenge most of the time; he loves it, wants to study more, work more, learn more, achieve, achieve, achieve. Make a difference the best way he knows how. Just –

He can't quite seem to manage this week. Not tonight. Not now.

Now, it’s all too much.

He’s been feeling like he’s been slipping under the surface for a while now, but tonight is the first time he's started to fear he might drown.

“Fuck,” Pushing his glasses off, Alex rubs his eyes with fingers and thumb, and regrets the fact he’s already eaten his way through all of the ice cream they keep in the freezer. The cursor blinks on the glowing screen in front of him like an accusation, the few paragraphs he’s managed to scrape together painfully inadequate, the feeble sentences blurring together like they’re mocking him.

A soft rap of knuckles on the doorframe startles Alex into lifting his head, blinking owlishly.

“May I come in?” The voice is warm and instantly welcome, a teasing lilt to the question.

“Oh – hey,” His mind and body lightning up, Alex swings around on his chair, not stopping for an instant to edit the big goofy smile that breaks out on his face. Because there’s Henry propped in the doorway to the study, his jacket still on and his hair mussed, cheeks a little flushed from the crisp night air outside, like maybe he walked for some distance, like maybe he rushed.

Henry holds up a plastic bag, grinning, “I come bearing gifts for the dedicated student.”

“I thought you had that thing over the other side of the city with the insane early start tomorrow,” Alex is saying nearly at the same time, shaking his head; they've both been mourning the fact their schedules have rarely matched over the past month and the same over the coming weeks, Henry booked up with charity events and appearances in local schools and hospitals, while Alex has more than one big deadline coming up.

“I do,” Henry kicks his shoes off – he must have come straight into the brownstone and up the stairs to find Alex, not stopping to do anything else – and leaves them there in the corridor like that, tromping into the room to drop a kiss on the top of Alex’s head. “I wanted to come home and see you far more than I wanted to stay in that horrible hotel, however near the interview location it may be. Even if I know I’m being very bad interrupting you when this was supposed to be a night for studying.”

To Alex’s knowledge, the hotel had been in no way horrible. He can’t stop grinning, flinging his arms up to pull Henry down and kiss him properly.

“Who gives a fuck about studying – I wanted you to come home and see me far more than I wanted you to stay there too.”

They keep kissing for a while, warm and smooth and easy, Henry standing while Alex remains in his chair, the prince leaning over him like that. The rustle of the plastic bag draws Alex’s attention after a while.

“Ice cream?” he pulls back to ask.

“But of course,” Henry’s face is yet more flushed for the kissing, his hair even more attractively mussed. Alex’s hands must have wandered without him even realising; they have a habit of doing that. Henry bites his kiss swollen lips and holds the bag open to show Alex what lies within. Two boxes of Helados, a third box that contains Cornettos and – “I even got cajeta just for you.”

“_You’re amazing,_” Alex breathes, making grabby hands.

“I have no idea whether you’re referring to me or the cajeta,” Henry laughs as he hands the bag over, watching Alex paw inside it eagerly to fish out a couple of items buried beneath the food.

“Oh I was talking about the cajeta, definitely,” Alex ducks to evade Henry’s swat, chuckling as he inspects his finds: a pack of Star Wars themed sticky notes in various sizes and a memo pad sporting a cartoon of Harry Potter on the front cover.

A fond smile tugs Henry’s lips as he glances meaningfully at the towering stack of Alex’s research notes piled to one side on the desk, decorated throughout with an extreme number of sticky notes, “I thought you might be in need of fresh supplies.”

“You thought right, but – did you get the Star Wars ones for me or for you?” Alex has to teasingly enquire, although his heart is soaring.

“Oh I wonder; who do you think?” Henry kisses the top of Alex’s head again. His next words are muffled in Alex’s hair, although his grin is still audible, “I’ll let you use one or two.”

Alex splutters, “_One or two_ –”

This time Henry is the one to laughingly evade a swat. He takes the remaining ice creams out to the kitchen to put them in the freezer, after taking one each out of the boxes, and Alex has arranged an artful blob of cajeta on top of his Helados by the time the prince returns with a drink in each hand.

“Taking a break?” Henry nods to the computer by now in sleep-mode, and Alex shrugs, nudging him with grateful affection, careful not to spill the drinks.

“I weighed up whether I want to spend time with you more than I want to work and – guess what, you won by a landslide,” he balances drink and ice cream in one hand in order to turn off the desk lamp, while Henry opens the window.

They don’t have a balcony, so they eat their ice creams like that, the cool night air blowing onto their faces from outside adding to the cold in their mouths. Alex trades Henry sticky kisses, while Henry points out the occasional star between the clouds in their very own patch of sky, the one they see whenever they look out their study or kitchen or bedroom window. He names the hidden constellations and Alex quotes a bit of poetry he was reading between classes, lines about a man longing for his lover in the dark.

“How did you know to come tonight?” he murmurs eventually, when it’s becoming unavoidable that Henry should either go to sleep or get Shaan to take him back to the hotel in order to make his early start the next day.

“Hm?” Henry tips his head to give Alex a smile, “You didn’t seem your usual self in your texts.” He eyes him, “And no selfies. I knew something had to be wrong.”

“I didn’t say anything was _wrong_,” Alex has to protest, but Henry has always been able to see through him, the smiles and the charm; through to the feelings he always used to deal with – or not – alone. And he doesn’t want to pretend around Henry, anyway.

“Do you think you can sleep?” Henry asks, “Or do you need to keep working for a while?”

“What about you?” Alex counters, “Will you get enough sleep here to survive tomorrow, or –”

“I’ll stay here at home, if you’ll have me,” The smile Henry gives him is so sweet Alex’s heart feels like it actually skips a beat.

“I’ll _have_ you all right,” he’s practically obliged to tease nonetheless, and slides his palm over Henry’s thigh, “Or you know, you can have me.”

“With pleasure,” Henry’s hand slides over Alex’s, warm and sure, “To both. Not now unfortunately, but – as soon as we can.”

“Yeah,” Grinning a bit ruefully, Alex glances at his stack of notes and the silent computer. The work he needs to do doesn’t seem nearly so momentous now. And maybe –

Maybe he could consider asking someone at school to help, if it comes to it. Maybe he doesn’t always have to struggle through it alone.

He hasn’t. He isn’t. He’s not alone.

“I love you,” Alex tells Henry, as however many times he might say this, it’s never enough.

Henry’s smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, “I love you too.”

Alex would marry this man in a heartbeat. When he’s got his deadlines sorted and they’ve won themselves a bit of breathing space, he’s going to have a proper think about asking Henry. Alex has already compiled a number of lists and they all go along the lines of

1) _Yes_.

2) You should do this, Alex. Ask.

For now he just rests his head against Henry’s and closes his eyes for a moment, just absorbing the closeness and the lateness of the hour.

Henry ends up playing the piano quietly in the next room for a bit before bed, a piece of his own composition, while Alex gets his paragraphs untangled and some of the knots out of his brain, soothed by Henry’s presence along with the music. Alex will get up early in the morning, when Henry does, and make them both a proper breakfast – none of those plain English beans – and then dive head first into his research.

If he gets on well, he might be able to surprise Henry after that interview of his. Smiling to himself, Alex begins to make plans.


End file.
